


Real People Do

by madnessandbrilliance



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Banter, M/M, Mutual Pining, Practice Kissing, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24209299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessandbrilliance/pseuds/madnessandbrilliance
Summary: It begins, as most poor decisions in university do, with an all-nighter.__Or, Lio has never kissed anyone, and Galo has a terribly wonderful idea.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 20
Kudos: 298





	Real People Do

**Author's Note:**

> A small drabble written as a collaboration with my incredibly talented friend [Mar](https://twitter.com/the_arthipelago). Please enjoy the art she drew for it at the end of the fic, and go check out her other work!

It begins, as most poor decisions in university do, with an all-nighter.

It’s three in the morning. Galo and Lio sit at Galo’s small, beaten dining room table, eating macaroni and cheese and trying to ignore the way their eyes burn with exhaustion. There are two textbooks lying open a few feet away, and notes—some in precise, elegant cursive, some in large, rounded chicken scratch— scatter the floor.

Lio can feel the vague sort of detachment from his body that only comes from lack of sleep as he mechanically lifts his spoon to his mouth. He’s less a human and more a hungry, cheese-loving zombie at this point, only instead of groaning “braaaains” he’s reciting chapter thirteen of _Population Issues in Anthropology_.

_“_ The moment we walk out of that exam tomorrow,” he grumbles, finally breaking the silence that had fallen over them. He watches Galo’s sleepily bobbing head as he tries to eat his food without passing out. “I’m taking a twelve-hour nap. _Minimum_.”

Galo blinks. Lio can see his brain splutter and restart. They’re both far too tired for this. “What about your other class?” is the first thing he says, when Lio’s words process.

“I haven’t missed a day yet,” Lio sniffs. “I can afford to miss one, after this rubbish.”

Galo snickers like Lio said something funny. It’s sounds mildly [unhinged]. Probably delirium, which Lio understands, at this point. “That’s fair.”

“Does this mean _you’re_ going to go?”

“Gonna power through like I always do!” Galo shoves a too-large spoonful in his mouth then sets the spoon down. There’s some life returning to his eyes. “‘Sides, can’t miss my shift at the station.”

Lio stares. “Galo. You realized you aren’t getting paid to work at that fire station, right?”

“Hey!” Galo waggles his spoon at him. “I don’t volunteer to get paid! I do it to save lives!”

“You quite _literally_ just help clean their equipment.”

“And tomorrow’s mandatory anyways.” He ignores Lio entirely, speaking with vigor now, like bickering with Lio was all he needed to wake up. Lio sort of wants to smile about it, so he forces a frown instead. “There’s a first aid and CPR course goin’ on.”

“You’re going to learn how to breathe life back into a human being while running on little to no sleep?” Lio wishes he could be more surprised, but it’s _Galo_ , so instead he just slumps in his chair a little more. “You’re mad.”

“Mad impressive, maybe,” Galo winks, and Lio rolls his eyes. It’s particularly annoying that cocky is, unfortunately, a good look on him. “I’ve already taken a CPR course before though, so this is just about getting re-certified.”

“Can’t you break someone’s ribs while doing chest compressions? Are you sure you should be risking doing that when you’re so tired you can’t even hold your spoon properly?”

Galo blinks again and looks at his hand. He did indeed pick it up with handle down.

“I told you I already know how to do it!” He very stubbornly scoops up macaroni with the handle. “And we’re working with dummies anyways. Wouldn’t wanna hurt anyone while learning compressions, like you said.”

Lio huffs. “I suppose I can’t talk you out of it.” Galo shakes his head. “Well. It’s good you’re using dummies, then. I can’t imagine practicing on a real person wouldn’t be awkward.” Mouth-to-mouth in particular sounds terrifyingly uncomfortable.

To his surprise, Galo shrugs. “People know it’s just professional. It’s not that weird.”

Lio can’t imagine how it wouldn’t be. Then again, he’s not one for casual physical contact, even in a professional setting. Only a few people had managed to break through his walls, and one of them was sitting across the table from him, shoveling cheesy pasta into his mouth.

“S’weird isn’t it?” Galo says, mouth full. Lio patiently looks at him until he pouts and swallows.

“What’s weird?”

“Mouth-to-mouth really isn’t _that_ different from kissing, besides the whole, like, blowing air thing. But one of them is just a procedure, and the other one is all romantic and feels good and shit like that.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lio says, before he can stop himself. Galo stops, tilts his head, and gives him a confused frown.

“Wouldn’t know what?”

Lio is unable to hold back the embarrassed blush that spreads across his face. He glares down at his cooling macaroni and cheese. Sleep-deprivation, he thinks, is a one-way ticket to endless mortification

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” Lio verbalizes somewhat waspishly. “So I wouldn’t know.” He’s aware of his own defensiveness, but he can’t help it at the startled look that appears on Galo’s face. “It’s not that shocking, there are plenty of people who haven’t—”

“Nononono,” Galo cuts him off, shaking his head and waving his hands so that some macaroni goes flying off his spoon. “It’s not that, just. Well. You’re—”

And he gestures vaguely at Lio’s entire person.

Lio flushes deeper. Is that a compliment? He can’t entirely tell, but with Galo, it usually is. “I have no idea what that means. Pick up that macaroni, I don’t want cockroaches.”

Galo pouts but goes to do so. “I just figured you would have, y’know? Thought you just didn’t want to tell me, or something. We never talked about stuff like that before.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to tell you?” They’d been best friends for a while now. Lio told Galo everything. Well. Almost everything. Some things, he wouldn’t admit, even to himself. “And what, does that mean that you _have_?”

He’s not expecting an affirmative. When Galo shrugs, he feels his jaw drop. “Just once or twice.” At Lio’s stare, Galo elaborates. “In high school, before we became friends.”

There’s a curl of something distinctly unpleasant in Lio’s stomach. He tears his gaze away and looks down at his bowl. It’s cooled down to the point that the pasta is congealing, and that plus the dark pit in his gut makes him set his spoon down. “Ah,” he finally answers. His voice doesn’t waver. “I see.”

Ever more perceptive than he lets on, Galo offers, “It’s not a big deal.” When Lio lifts his gaze again, Galo is looking at him with a curious expression, head tilted as he contemplates Lio. It is, once again, annoyingly cute. Lio kind of wants to smack him for it.

“I know,” Lio huffs. He picks up his spoon again but doesn’t look away. One of Galo’s most endearing qualities is the transparency of his expressions; his every thought is broadcast across his face. Lio sees the moment the idea hits him, eyes burgeoning, brows skyrocketing, grin spreading. Lio doesn’t even have the time to be wary.

“Hey! What If I gave you a hand?”

The dots don’t connect right away. “What do you mean?”

Galo leans forward. “I mean, you look kinda down about it and I have experience, plus we’re friends so—what if you practiced with me?”

Thank goodness Lio stopped eating; if he’d had anything in his mouth he would have promptly choked on it. As it is, he inhales so sharply his throat hurts. “ _What_?”

Lio takes back what he says about Galo being perceptive. He seems oblivious to Lio’s embarrassed shock. “Better someone who isn't afraid to give you pointers, right? It can be like practicing CPR! And then you can get it out of the way!” With a thoughtful purse of his lips, he leans back on the back legs of his chair, eyeing the ceiling.

_Why not_ , Lio’s subconscious offers, like a traitor. _You trust him. And he’s not bad looking._ Because they need to study, he tries to argue with himself, and this was only supposed to be a quick break to refuel. Because it’s a stupid idea. Somehow, though, in his sleep-deprived state, he thinks Galo might actually be on to something this time.

“And,” Galo suddenly adds, and shoots Lio a smug-looking smirk. “I like to think I’m pretty good at—”

“Okay,” Lio hears himself say. He’s pretty sure he didn’t order his mouth to move or words to come out. Distantly, he thinks it’s amazing he sounds so composed when he wants to set himself on fire. Damn his subconscious.

Galo blinks. “Wh—really?”

Lio looks away, face burning. “Don’t offer if you don’t actually mean it, you idiot.”

Still wide-eyed, but with a distinct excitement spreading over his features, Galo squirms in his seat. “I did mean it! I just didn’t know you were actually gonna say yes!”

Somehow, that feels even more embarrassing. Lio drops his spoon and stands up from the table. From now on, he refuses to stay up later than midnight, not if it means losing the self-control to avoid getting himself into this sort of situation.

“Well,” he says stiffly. “We don’t have to—”

And he is promptly cut off by a yank to his wrist. Fortunately, he hadn’t yet picked up his bowl, or the contents would have scattered everywhere. “Nope!” Galo tugs Lio forward until their knees bump where Galo still sits in his chair. “No backing out now, c’mon.”

Lio feels a tug of excitement under the rising apprehension. Galo tilts his head again, then leans forward and pulls Lio’s chair until it hits the back of Lio’s legs. Lio takes the cue to plop into it. Galo scoots forward in his chair.

They’re close now, not intimately so but still more than before. Lio’s sure they’ve been in closer proximity before, but something about this feels more thrilling. Nerve-wracking.

Maybe it’s that they’re facing each other, maybe it’s the knowledge that Galo is about to claim something of Lio’s he hadn’t realized he cared to give until now. Lio feels a little dizzy, maybe with anticipation, maybe with exhaustion. He looks at Galo, still pink but determined not to allow his nerves to get the better of him. Galo is uncharacteristically serious, a single-minded focused intensity in the way he’s looking at Lio. Shifting forward, he carefully lifts a hand to Lio’s cheek.

Lio twitches but doesn’t move away.

“Is this okay?” Galo asks. His voice is lower, quieter, and it sends a shiver up Lio’s spine.

Lio clears his throat. “Yes.”

Galo leans forward, hand still on Lio's cheek. Lio clenches his fists on his thighs and stubbornly keeps his eyes open, if only to see Galo’s expression as he nears. The closer he gets, the more his eyelids lower until they're half shut as he hesitates a couple inches away. Their breaths are mingling now. _It’s just practice_ , Lio reminds himself, even as his eyes flutter shut at the feeling of Galo’s exhale against his lips. After a moment--

“Are you going to kiss me or are we going to wait until I'm an old maid?”

A huff. “Shut up! I'm getting in the zone!”

Lio huffs a laugh, but it's cut off when Galo very gently presses his lips to Lio's. It’s a firm, but soft pressure, very chaste at first.

“Relax,” Galo mumbles against his mouth, and Lio wants to snarl about how he can be expected to relax when he’s receiving kissing lessons from his best friend, except then Galo tilts his head to adjust the angle. Nothing intense, but the motion eases something in the contact, and Lio feels tension in his shoulders that he hadn’t been aware of drop. His mouth parts a bit, and Galo sinks into it a little more.

It feels… nice. Warm, unfamiliar, but undeniably pleasant. Lio wants to do this _right_ , he wants to _learn_ , so he mirrors Galo, tilting his head the other way. Galo’s hand slides from his cheek to cradle the back of his head, and Lio sighs before he can help himself.

Before it can go any further, Galo pulls back. Lio resists the urge to follow, opening his eyes.

Galo is finally blushing a bit, the tips of his ears red. “Well that’s.” He clears his throat. “Yeah. That’s how you kiss.”

Lio leans back in his chair. There’s a quiet disappointment in his chest he doesn’t want to acknowledge. It had felt so nice, even with his mind moving a mile a minute, taking note of every move Galo made. He wants to know what it would have felt like if he’d lost himself in it.

Lio swiftly stops that train of thought before it can go any further. He swallows. “I see.”

Eyes locked in front of him, pointedly looking away from Galo’s face, Lio watches as Galo’s leg bounces in place at a frantic speed. “Do you—” Galo’s leg speeds up. “D’you think you got it now?”

And that was that. Lio doesn’t sigh, but he does shrug. “Probably, yes.”

“… you wanna try it, then?”

This finally gets him to look up. Galo’s arms are crossed, he’s looking at the ceiling, but his jaw is clenched in that determined way of his, when he’s made up his mind about something. Lio is suddenly very much aware of how much he likes that look. “Like, me kiss _you_?”

His tone is sharper than he intended, but instead of backing down, Galo bristles. “Unless you think you didn’t get it—”

Lio shuffles forward until they’re nose to nose, and Galo cuts off. “Please,” he scoffs, sounding far braver than he feels. More sure of himself too. “You didn’t even use tongue.”

He braces a hand on Galo’s shoulder to steady himself. He wants to make this feel good, like Galo did. The part of him that is still not entirely dazed by the lateness of the hour and raging hormones insists that it’s to prove to himself that he’s on Galo’s level. Galo licks his lips and Lio’s gaze traces the motion, which derails the entire argument.

Galo exhales shakily. “I can show you that too, if you want?”

Their noses brush.

“You can?” Lio breathes.

His other hand comes up to the nape of Galo’s neck.

Galo’s eyes flutter closed. “Yeah, if you manage to get this ri—"

Lio closes the gap, their noses bumping at first. He quickly adjusts the angle the way he remembers Galo had, and they slide together so perfectly that they both sigh in tandem. Galo’s hand comes up to rest on Lio’s waist and he carefully kisses Lio’s lower lip, smiling a little when Lio mimics him. Lio can feel it against his mouth and it makes him shudder a little.

Galo tugs on Lio’s lower lip with his teeth—so unexpected-- and Lio gasps in surprise. He hadn’t known you could _do_ that; hadn’t known he would _like_ it. Galo takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss and trace his tongue against the spot he bit.

Everything he does, Lio copies, until they’re lazily making out, trading clumsy, sloppy kisses punctuated by the occasional quiet sigh. Somehow, Galo has tugged Lio into his lap, both hands on Lio’s hips, and Lio has moved his hands into Galo’s hair. Lio is hardly thinking about technique now; everything is _warm_ and intoxicating, and he finally understands how people can lose track of time like this-- he hadn’t realized what he’d been missing.

Lio pulls back first. He’s trembling a little, but the heady warmth is sinking too low for comfort, and this is _practice_ , he can’t let it get out of hand even if he’s slowly coming to terms that what he’s feeling is more than just two boys kissing for platonic reasons.

Galo doesn’t call him out on that, though any other time he would be quick to boast about making Lio lose his cool. His eyes are focused on Lio’s mouth, and Lio wonders if his own lips look as pink and bitten and wet as Galo’s do. 

When he speaks, his voice is raspy. “Does that mean I got it right?”

Galo nods. “Yeah.” Lio realizes this mildly dazed expression is Galo’s post-make out face, which he wouldn’t have seen had it not been for this all-nighter and Galo’s idiotic offer.

_That’s enough_. Lio leans back, hands sliding off of Galo’s neck. He doesn’t make it off of Galo’s lap; Galo’s hands trap his hips. “So I’ve learned it all?”

At that, Galo finally drops his hands off of Lio’s waist. Lio ignores the sudden rush of cold air in the spots his hands had been. “If you want to stop—"

“No, I just mean—"

They look at each other.

This is a very stupid idea. They still have a test. Galo has his first aid course tomorrow— they shouldn’t be wasting time like this. This was just supposed to be a snack break. This is too addicting.

Once again, Lio’s voice speaks without his permission “If you think I need more practice…”

Galo’s hands slowly creep back up to Lio’s hips. Lio watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “You’re pretty good. But practice makes perfect, right?”

Lio is already leaning in again. “Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> [ Link](https://twitter.com/the_arthipelago/status/1261495171239141378?s=20) to art on twitter 
> 
> If you liked this, please comment/kudos! And go check out my other Galolio fic, [cause in your warmth (I forget how cold it can be)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21534886).


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